Review of Paranoid Park (2007) by Jarret W — 10 Oct 2008

One of Gus Van Sants best films and definatly the best out of the "non actor" films he's done...

This film has everything a near perfect Van Sant film always does, with great direction, beautiful cinematography (The shower scene with the water dripping in slow motion as the pitch of the music rises was probally one of the most intense scenes I've seen in film this year, and the use of the Fish-Eye camera lens for the skateboarding scenes to give it the look of an actual skate video was the perfect choice for those scenes) and an awesome soundtrack- including some fantastic music from Nino Rota, as well as Van Sant favorite Elliot Smith.

The one thing that also stood out in this film for me was the dialogue, yes it has some moments where the dialogue seems forced, but when the camera rolls and there is just random conversations going on is where it has it's impact, Van Sant does what few directors (other than Larry Clark) can do by getting the most real unscripted dialogue out of his untrained actors and some of the scripted scenes of the characters making small talk with were some of the best I've seen in his last 4 films, including a GREAT scene between the main character and the police officer questioning him for the first time at the school, I never thought a conversation about the prices of the sandwiches at Subway and which toppings he'd ordered could be so impactfull...another thing I thought worked REALLY well was the voice over from the main character...yes the dialogue in that may be fairly plain and basic, but I think that was the whole point...it was a young guy writting the story (probally one who's first intrest isn't english class and creative writing) so as bad as the voice over may seem, it's also very real, it's a kid reading a story that a kid would have written...

All in all a great film, I would recomend it to anyone to at least give it a look, like Van Sants most recent films (Elephant, Gerry, Last Days) it may not be for everyone but true fans of indie/arthouse films will definatly get something out of this one.